Digital colouring

 Spring 2025

After my eviction drawings I had an artist block, I felt absolutely no inspiration to draw, I spent all my time in the garden. Come spring I turned my computer on and opened photoshop. 
I decided I wanted a big coloured version of "Summer" on my bedroom wall, so I finished the black and white digital drawing and coloured it.

Both the drawings are available as A2 Giclee prints, you can find them Art Makers portfolio

HERE - https://www.artmakers.uk/portfolio/amanda/https://www.artmakers.uk/portfolio/amanda/

I enjoyed digital colouring so much that I decided to colour Ilfracombe too.

I wasn't 100% happy with the colour, so I tweaked it and then couldn't work out which one I liked the best, so both of them (plus the black and white) are available from my Art Makers portfolio.

Eviction drawings 2024 to 2025

In February I finished my eviction series, the drawings aren't very neat, but as I'm going to keep them it doesn't really matter. They are the memory of a very difficult time in my life, that miraculously turned into happiness.

"My Now House" Lynton 2024

"My Never House" 2024, when life was at its darkest and I was researching the price of caravans and the cost of storing all our possessions.

"My New House" Combe Martin 2025

Photo's on my Phone 5th of September to 10th of December

 This is a deeply depressing blog post, but it does have a happy ending, I felt I couldn't write about my misery until there was positive news. It's been a long time since my last post as for the past 3 months we have lived in limbo. Every day the same, a constant sense of despair, pointlessness, feeling that we had no future, nothing to do, but stalk the rental sites desperately trying to find a needle in a haystack.

We took the dogs to the beach a lot, the wind and the rain and emptiness fitted our mood.

We searched for a house in Lynton or Lynmouth or even one of the out laying villages, but there was nothing. All the rental houses had been sold for second homes and Airbnb after the pandemic, we've been here for 12 years, moved several times and never had a problem finding somewhere local.

So resigned our selves to the fact we would have to leave our home and community and look further afield.

 

We won second prize for the best allotment for an allotment we have to give up.

We walked on the beach some more, all the time grieving the fact that these things would not be ours anymore.

However leaving was made slightly easier as Daisy had already gone, she and Sam found a beautiful house down a quiet lane in Hele, just outside Ilfracombe.

The flat upstairs was so quiet it felt like part of me was missing.

I drew my "Now house", its A3 drawn in fine line pens, so you can see all the pen strokes, normally I would tidy them up, but to leave it messy fitted my mood.

Sandra and I walked our dogs everyday and as all good friends she listened to my misery.

I finally decided to go to the Drs and was prescribed antidepressants, they made a huge difference, it meant that I didn't burst into tears every time someone asked if we'd found somewhere. They didn't solve the problems, but gave me the impetus to do something proactive. 

So rather than stalking the rental sites finding nothing we wanted, we finally started applying to look at houses.

There weren't many that were suitable, most wouldn't take pets or didn't have a garden or were a top floor flat or most of insulting of all were the short lets of holiday rentals, owners looking to make a bit of money over the winter. We carried on packing and stalking the sites. I soon discovered that agents only show the houses to a few people, so you need to be on the phone as soon as something suitable comes up.

I drew my "Never home", because that's how likely I felt we would find something. In the whole 3 months we only found 3 houses that we would want to live in, we applied for all 3 and were turned down for 2 of them.

BUT we were offered the 3rd one, I still can't believe it's going to be ours, it's a 3 bedroom house with a garden, garage and balcony over looking the sea. 

Even though its perfect it has 2 faults, the first is it isn't in Lynton and the second is it doesn't have a woodturner/open fire.

Its in Combe Martin which is 10 mins drive from Daisy, not too far from Lynton so we can still spend time with our friends.

I can see my house from the beach.

And the beach from my balcony. It means we can walk the dogs on the beach everyday and swim and sun bathe in the summer.

We move in 9 days I still can't believe it's going to be ours, I'm still not sleeping, still feeling anxious, but the emptiness has been replaced with plans for the garden and trying to work out where all the books are going.

The moment I stand on the balcony and look at the sea will be the moment I can relax.

Drawing for me

Looking through my photo's I realised that last year was the year I drew for everyone else but me. 

I wanted (and needed) to sell prints, due to the recession which has shrunk all my income streams into a trickle.

I thought that if I drew what I thought people would like to buy that the prints would sell, but I hadn't considered that just because you like something it doesn't mean you are going to buy it.

I also drew for the people who said "I'd love to see a drawing of my building/shop/house etc etc" at the time I considered this was an intent to buy, but it wasn't. It was exactly what they said, "I would love to see.." not "I would like to buy.."

Over the last year attending fairs & markets numerous people commented that their house wasn't on one of my drawings, so they wouldn't buy it, but if I did a drawing that included their house that they would buy a print.

Over the past few weeks I have been considering starting several new drawings that would include all the missing houses, I even printed several photo's to use as inspiration, but I haven't been inspired enough to put pen to paper.

I think life is telling me to draw for me, so I'm rewinding, hoping I'll get back to here or some place similar.

At present I have a block about starting something and getting it wrong, so Iam colouring and altering prints that don't sell.

At the moment I'm working on Hollerday House

Which started off as this.

The coloured version is a bit of a mess, as I'm still trying to find the right pens to use, there are a few places where the markers have bled over the line or tiny spots of colour when the acrylic pen decided to leak, but on the whole I'm very happy and enjoying every minute of it.

At the moment my guilty pleasure is looking at pens on-line trying to find the perfect one to colour prints, a few have accidentally ended up in the post on their way to me 😁

Experiments & other stuff

Not only have I finished Ilfracombe , but I've also finished Woolacombe.

I quite like it, but got carried away with acrylic pen and have over worked it. I was going to have it framed so I could exhibit it, but I'm not sure its worth it, so I'll find/make a mount and sell it as it is.

After finishing a major project I always feel a bit lost, so this weekend I've been playing until inspiration strikes. I decided I needed to tackle my Verona green sketchbook, the paper is beautiful, but the green dulls the colours and colour is my thing, so I've struggled to use it. I decided to experiment with different mediums, the first was Posca acrylic pens (one of my favourites) and think I don't need to look any further they are perfect, the colours are luminous.

The drawing on the right is drawn with a 0.003 pen and coloured with a 0.5 pen, it would be nice if I could perfect combining the two pens. 

 

I follow the artist  Niamh Moran on Instagram she works over her prints, adding more colour and detail, so each print is individual. As I've got several prints that don't sell I thought I'd experiment.

This is the First quarter of Summer, I've used several different mediums trying to find one that works. I used fine line felt pens, marker pens, coloured pencils and finally acrylic pens. Fine line pens are too dark, the paper is porous so the markers bleed, my pencils are too soft, I struggle to keep them within the lines, but yet again the acrylic pens are perfect.

Experimenting with Summer has led me to look at it again.

Summer started as a drawing of all the places we had visited with our grand boys in the school summer holidays in 2022.

The original has orange juice and dog foot prints all over it thanks to my then very large bouncy puppy, so I knew I could never sell it, so I put it into photoshop and started drawing over it. In the autumn of 2022 I started drawing Lynton and abandoned Summer. At that time I had only drawn the top half, so I cut it into 2 pieces to sell as quarters of Summer.

I had several prints of the First quarter of Summer, but as it wasn't popular I never bothered having the second quarter printed.

At some point in time I coloured the first quarter in digitally, which I love. I only have one copy, which is framed and has been shown at my Exmoor Parks exhibition.

I loved the colour version so much that I want to colour the whole drawing, unfortunately I can't find the original the digital progress image, plus the two quarters didn't match up as I'd redrawn the edges where they met.

So I've started the digital drawing again. The above is what I have drawn so far, the cream background is just to give an idea of how big it is.

I have visions of an A1 coloured version, framed on my wall and maybe a plan of where to submit it if I finish it in time.

And lastly I have a new sketchbook, which I'm so excited about, it's a A5 concertina sketchbook. I will be able to draw one page at a time and slightly overlap onto the next page, enabling all the drawings to become one large image.

I'm so excited I can't wait for it to stop raining so I can find something to draw in it.

Ilfracombe Harbour

 Ilfracombe is finished .. YAY!!

(Apart from a few waves around Verity, that Ive only just noticed, I'll draw them in before its goes to be printed.)

Anyway this drawing has taken me over a year, from the very first set of photographs to the drawing you see on screen.

I started drawing in December, using a 0.1 fine line pen, by the end of February when I had draw half the original pen drawing before I discovered it wouldn't fit on the page, so the original drawing ended up as a set of sketches.

Since April I have been working on it in photoshop, I've done an awful lot of cut and pasting, been back several times to take more photo's, studied google street view trying to fill in the gaps. The photo's below show my progress over the last 4 months.

 

         

The image will be a Giclee print, printed using pigment inks onto archival fine art paper.

The print is now ready for ordering, UK orders will be delivery straight from the printer, so will be unsigned. 

I am able to sign and deliver copies locally anywhere within 20 miles of Lynton, which includes Ilfracombe, Barnstaple, Braunton, South Molton etc etc If you live a little further please contact me as I will need to charge a small amount towards fuel costs.

The Image can be printed in three sizes and costs (UK shipping) included as follows..

A1+ (limited edition 500) £300

A2+ £130

A3+ £85

I am able to send internationally however shipping will be extra.

I accept PayPal or bank transfer payments.
If you have any questions or would like a copy of the print please leave a message in the comments box on the left hand side of this post.

Landscape

Landscapes have always been my thing and so living at the end of the road is perfect for me. 

I like the wild best of all, I think that's why I have a strong affinity to the sea. I've lived within 10 miles of the coast all my life, I've spent the last 30 years with the sea almost on my door step. I can't imagine what it would be like to live inland.

I spent most of my early life surrounded by fields, woods and marshes, I still live very close to nature except I've swapped the fields & marshes for moorland and hills, so these are the things I draw.

I like to have a personal connection to the places I draw, that's why I draw my little corner of Exmoor. 

I don't feel I could draw somewhere else unless I have been there, but even then I feel slightly guilty for stealing someone else's landscape.

The view from the allotment is spectacular, across Lynmouth Bay to South Wales, on a clear day you can see the mountains and wind farms on the coast, this year we haven't had many clear days, but it was very clear on Sunday when we were at the allotment. I've never drawn this view, but the clouds are so amazing in this photo that I'm considering it. 

This is the view sideways to the east, the white building in the middle is The Blue ball pub, the white blur further up is camper vans in the car park we use when walking on Countisbury.

As I'd photographed The Blue Ball from the allotment I thought it was only right to photograph the allotment from the Blue Ball. You can just make them out in the second photo, to the left of the houses, behind the row of bungalows.

I'm not sure whether I will draw these views, but I like the fact they are connected.

Below are some of my other favourite local landscapes all within 5 mins from my front door.

Ilkerton Ridge which I have drawn several times and will probably draw again.

Holdstone Down, which I plan to draw next, maybe .....

Lynton & Lynmouth from Countisbury Hill, I love how this view illustrates just how remote we are. If I ever draw it I would need to draw on at least A2 size paper as I have a compulsion to draw all the buildings in the right places. Maybe it will need several sheets of paper and more photographs using a very good camera!

Park Gardens from Hollerday Hill, the angle is wrong, Park Gardens goes up hill to the right, but I photographed from it from the snowball path walking up hill to the left. I will have to alter the angle before I draw it.

There are so many more amazing views, almost every direction I look. When I decided I needed to appeal to a wider audience I decided I needed to leave Lynton and draw landscapes further afield, but as I've chosen to draw for me I can continue drawing my landscape without any guilt.